Guitar Success

Music is a language and is best learnt when fully immersed in a musical environment. People learning new spoken languages tend to struggle if their only contact with that language is their weekly class time. Without practicing, using and applying the new linguistic skills, progress is slow and inefficient.

Learning a new musical instrument works the same. No music teacher can teach absolutely everything about music and an instrument in 30mins a week. And that is if the student attends every lesson and has a regular quality practice routine at home. Instruments are connected with the musical language common to them all. This is why students who have excelled in music learn a new instrument faster than students with no prior musical experience. The musically experienced student doesn’t need to learn the language, only how to apply it to a new instrument (or tool). The musically inexperienced student needs to learn the musical language and apply it to a new tool. So, you may be lucky to have a school that fully embraces music. If not, there may be some private teacher in the community that can fill in the gaps. So, what helps to build a well-rounded musician?

Guitar lessons This is obvious, we want to play guitar we get guitar lessons. What is not obvious is the need for goals to work towards. A performance focuses the lesson, focuses the student. Until a performance most things passed on by the teacher has limited value and meaning. A performance could be a public concert or an exam. An exam provides the benchmark – but note that an exam is only part of music, not the sole point.

﻿Masterclasses﻿ A masterclass is usually a public lesson, and so it begins with a performance. These public lessons benefit both the student playing and the observer and so pay attention while others play. Having a private one off lesson with a guest teacher (that is not your regular teacher) is really helpful. Even more helpful if the guest teacher says similar things of the regular teacher.

Theory It is not possible to teach the basics of guitar playing without covering some basic theory, for example note names, rhythm time values. But there is a point where the practical and theory become not possible to fully cover together in 30mins a week. A good grasp of theory can help understand the musical language and connect concepts. It can help move from “what does that mean”, past “how do I do that” to “why is it there”. There is no point in learning theory for fun – sit the exams. In fact the AMEB position theory certificates as co-requisite to certain levels of practical certificates (No one gets their Grade 8 practical certificate without their Grade 4 theory certificate)

Group Playing This is what it is all about! Sharing music with others. Some students find this intimidating but the huge benefit of group music is the absence of competition – no one wins for finishing first. It also takes a lot of pressure off when performing in public. Going on band camp or music tour is one of the lasting memories from the school years. Students are brought together through the guitar and not just because they are all the same age (i.e. year group camp). We make friends as we travel to new places and it doesn’t stop at the end of school. After school there are festivals, camps and schools that create the highlight of the year. Check out Taranaki Classical Guitar Summer School and the Sydney Summer School. These are just a taster, there are loads of these events all over the world.Singing I had a university professor once say “Being able to sing gives the ability to hear a note before it sounds”. Singing is the most natural musical instrument we possess; it doesn’t require micro movements of the fingers. Often we talk about getting the music to sing and I heard a very good teacher once say, “if you can’t sing it, you can’t hear it, you can’t play it”. Singing in a choir is so good for aural training, particularly if you are given an inner voice. Being able to pick out notes that are not the main melody can help understand and dissect music.Piano Keyboard skills help understand theory quite well. The keyboard is laid out quite logically – almost more logically than the fret-board. You don’t need to be an expert of the piano but having a basic knowledge is very useful. Even as a master guitarist, I referred to the keyboard for theory for a very long time.School Music Doing music elective at school adds a positive social element to the musical environment. A well-run program will cover a little theory, a little practical, a little composing, a little group playing. Like practice, a short burst of these activities often is far better than longer less frequent sessions.

Listen Music is an aural art. Listening to others play is important to learn what to do and maybe what not to do. Don’t limit the listening to just classical guitar or just the current pop song being pushed on the radio. Extend to other styles and other instruments – an orchestra is rich with music colour! Don’t just collect CD’s, or sit in front of YouTube, go to live concerts. CD’s are edited (the bad bits are cut out of the recording) and can give us an unhealthy expectation of perfection. Go to a concert and discover that the experts also make mistakes – and what makes a good musician is not how many mistakes made but what do you do when one occurs? How do you recover?

It is not possible for a musician to fully develop in just 30 minutes of guitar lessons a week. There are other complimentary things to help develop the musician and with a healthy mix of the above activities you can gain greater value from guitar lessons.